Björk

Björk

Real Name:

Björk Guðmundsdóttir

Profile:

Icelandic singer and musician.

Born: 21 November 1965 in Reykjavík, Iceland.

Well known for her creative compositional style and distinct singing, Björk's recording career began in 1977 at the age of 11, when she released (as Björk Guðmundsdóttir) her first album, while studying piano and flute at music school. Although the album became platinum, she refused to make another disco-folk follow-up and, at the age of 13, formed her first short-lived punk band, all-girl alliance Spit and Snot (Saliva and Phlegm), where she played the drums. Later on she was involved in projects such as Exodus and Jam 80, all of which without known record releases.

In 1982 she launched punk-pop Tappi Tíkarrass (Cork The Bitch's Arse), releasing an EP and a LP, before she turned into a "serious" rebel by joining forces of the political "existential jazz-punk" of Kukl (Witchcraft), releasing three records. While Björk's vocal expression had matured in Kukl, she attracted worldwide prominence for the first time as one of the lead vocalists of the avant-pop Icelandic sextet The Sugarcubes.

In 1992 she emigrated to the UK, launched a solo career and quickly eclipsed her old band's popularity. Rather than following the Sugarcubes' artsy guitar rock, Björk immersed herself in dance and club culture, working with many of the biggest names in the genre, and receiving remix treatments from Underworld, Dom T., Fluke, µ-Ziq, Goldie, Mika Vainio, Alec Empire, Bogdan Raczynski, Beastie Boys and others.

Her first album Debut established her new artistic direction and became an international hit, making her one of the '90s most unlikely stars. Although the album was recorded with producer Nellee Hooper in 1993, its songs were actually composed during the previous ten years while she was in bands.

Björk quickly developed as a producer, moving from co-producer role on her early albums to full producer role in her later work, as her Music Producers Guild Award for Innovation in the category of production testifies. She is well recognized in both pop and experimental music worlds: her album Vespertine became album of the year by The Wire Magazine in 2001 and she won more than 20 awards in Europe and received 15 nominations in the US.

While Björk developed her unconventional song structures, she has worked with many renowned artists, mainly in the realm of electronic music. One of her long-time friends and main collaborators was Mark Bell of LFO who co-produced many of her songs and even co-wrote a number of pieces over the years. There are other artists who played important roles in the creative part of her work: Guy Sigsworth, Icelandic poet Sjón who helped on lyrics for some of her key songs and video director Michel Gondry.

Bjork has reinvented the single. Each one comes as a fantastically wasteful package with a whole bunch of inner sleeves and oversized box, fancy bullshit graphics, £30 price tag for a double 12" with a tacked on cd single with the same tracks and a single track video. Don't think about coming out with some politically correct greentalk bullshit after these Bjork, each copy snips another millimetre off the ozone layer! What happened to the plain sleeve and the £10 price tag? Who wants to fight with lorryloads of glossy cardboard to get a record out and play it?

I remember first time hearing Bjork and her Sugarcube-mate Einar Orn screaming and shouting to the point where you couldn't tell one from another - and at some point it irritated the hell out of me but didn't stop me from falling in love with their music... Then Sugarcubes disbanded and Bjork went on and 'Human Behaviour' seemed a nice start of a solo career - athough many omit the fact she already released an obscure standards album when 12, somewhere in 1977... 'Debut' was a nice continuation without our ability to place her in any of explored musical drawers, as Bjork simply tells the truth - she sings and paint with emotions on equal terms. After 'Post' things seemed to be a bit worn-out for me personally and the more she exposed herself, the more it started getting on my nerves... Until I saw her live during 'Vespertine' and said to myself: hey - this lady isn't faking anything. She is just the way she is. She tells us the truth -beautiful, haunting, mesmerising, disturbing. Always as wild and temperamental while sensitive and fragile all the same. The closest a human being ever got to mother nature.

Sometimes you're sitting in your bedroom drawing or writing or creating music or something. And you just feel like you have so much talent and creativity. And then along comes Bjork to totally blow you out of the water. She's insanely genius at pretty much everything (writing, singing, performing, album artwork, videos, websites and now acting) and never does anything half assed. A constant reminder to other artists on how far they can, and have, to go. Always pushing boundaries! Fantastic to watch and listen to.

;quite simply, the finest electronic music artist i have ever experienced, and one of the finest vocalists. each album she crafts pushes the envelope of her mainstream music-voice, while maintaining a firm collaborative foothold in bleeding edge electronic music and its finest artists; each is an inexplicable beautiful work of art: intensely personal, wholly unique, consummately detailed, and, paradoxically, both violently and subtly emotive.